a dangerous, disquieting thing

we don’t talk enough about teenage Kevin looking at Jeremy‘s pictures in magazines

You're a teenage boy. You're an athlete. No, wait, a star athlete. And a celebrity. You have press trips. You're studying and expected to keep up top academics. You're on four teams, simultaneously. One of them is the national team. Your 'brother'-partner-abuser doesn't like you to not be by his side so you have to make it a fight if you try to spend time with someone else. You're being abused, daily. You only get four hours of sleep. Most of your day is physical activity. It's been this way for years. The teen boy that you care about wasn't coping and he needed something to grip onto, something that helps him keep his sense of self and a lifeline of hope. You ask him to teach you his language. So you carve out time, time away from your keeper and time out of your intense overwhelming life so he can teach you his mother tongue. And you dash the consequences. He needs it. And this is yours, together. And in spite of how tired you are you dedicate yourself. And you learn it fluently. And you speak it when you patch him back together. And you listen to it in your head when your abuser is pulling you apart.

neil, from his pov: i'm trying so hard to shut my mouth. i really am. i am trying so hard and everyone else is just testing me

“Caught in each other’s gravity”.